


Passing

by deedeeinfj



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:16:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arwen muses on her husband's feelings for Éowyn</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passing

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2004.

Arwen bowed her head as her husband, his face pale and lined, emerged from the small room where Éowyn of Ithilien had just died. She wondered how a man could bring himself to give up his last moments with the still-warm body of the woman he loved, knowing that his next glimpse of her, his next touch, would be cold and lifeless. But perhaps those last moments were better left to Éowyn's husband, and perhaps Aragorn must take his grief alone and go with his wife, just as he had done while Éowyn lived.

No one had ever spoken or implied that her husband loved another woman, but Arwen had known it only days after seeing them together. Decades he had waited for Arwen Undómiel, and she found herself realizing that his heart - his mind, his strength, his will - was in the keeping of a woman he had met only months before. A woman who seemed no more than a child, with only twenty-five years to her credit. Arwen shared his bed and bore his children, watched in pride as he rebuilt a city and rekindled the hope of his people, but she never took his heart back from Éowyn. After a few years, she realized that she didn't mind, and she had never spoken of it to him.

All those years, Arwen knew she had been the ideal in his mind when he wandered and fought. She was something he could never have. But somehow the impossible happened and Aragorn did have her. Fate is never one to be kind, however, and he found himself wanting another thing he could never have: the fierce shieldmaiden who spent her days happily in Ithilien with a wise and loving husband. Defeating Sauron, destroying the ring, and reclaiming his kingdom all turned out to be possible. Spending his life with Éowyn never did.

Arwen felt no anger or resentment because of this, not even the faintest mocking twinge of jealousy, for she herself did not love Aragorn. Certainly she loved him in the way that one loves family, in that deep and binding way. But theirs had been a courtship of impossible ideals and then a marriage of state. A marriage of tradition and races, really, that was larger than themselves. Arwen had lived thousands of years before she met the young, boyish Aragorn and laughed merrily at his vision of Lúthien Tinúviel in her. At that point, she had never met an elf who stirred her heart, but Aragorn had, in that brave, earnest way that never left him.

She had long wished for mortality, to escape the increasing darkness of a world that had only grown colder when her mother left. In this forgotten heir to a long-decayed kingdom, she saw her chance to unite the land, to inspire a warrior, and to someday escape from Middle-earth herself. She loved the young Estel, and she loved Elessar the king, but she had never come to understand or fully love Aragorn the ranger - Aragorn the man. Perhaps she never had a chance to reach him because he belonged so wholly and impossibly to another.

From the darkened room before her, Arwen could hear the grief-stricken weeping of Faramir. Éowyn had truly loved him, and he had adored her. If ever it was possible to love two people, Arwen believed that Éowyn had. Éowyn herself, though, had always been two people: the shieldmaiden and the healer. The former had gradually yielded and given way to the latter, but always both were there. The healer loved Faramir and her gardens in Emyn Arnen; the warrior loved Aragorn and never fully forgot her dream of fighting at his side.

Arwen often wondered if Faramir saw what she did between Aragorn and Éowyn. She told herself that a man as perceptive and intuitive as Faramir must have seen it, and like her, never said anything... refused to disturb a peaceful acceptance because of the knowledge that it would never come to more. The hall was empty now, and Arwen stepped quietly into the room. Faramir looked up at her and inclined his head. "My queen."

"May I?" she asked him, looking at the frail, white-haired, and wrinkled little body that had once been Dernhelm, lithe, golden-haired slayer of the Nazgûl King. Faramir nodded, and Arwen approached the bed. She took Éowyn's hand in hers, amazed at how warm it still was - how soft. She looked at Éowyn's face, peaceful now in death. Arwen had always been fascinated by the quiet peace of death. Why did so many fear it, when it left such a look of long-awaited serenity?

 _He was always yours, Shieldmaiden of Rohan_ , she thought. She laid her hand on Faramir's shoulder. "The grace of the Valar to you, Faramir. The king and I grieve for her, as will the kingdom."

"You grieve for her?" he asked, turning slightly to watch her as she walked to the door. Faramir knew. Of course he knew.

"I do," she replied. She could not tell him that she also grieved for something that never was... something that should have been.


End file.
